A Must Read: Edwin Black's Non-Fiction Book THE PLAN - Review

Now that gasoline prices are heading back over $3 per gallon and it has become painfully obvious
that Barak Obama and his administration has done virtually none of the things he promised to make America
energy independent, we are republishing this review of Edwin Black's important book.

Only read this book if you want to understand the energy crisis and find
a solution. If you want to remain ignorant, selfish, and in support of
American-hating foreign oil producers and rapacious domestic gasoline
companies you should avoid Edwin Black's THE PLAN.

First published September 22, 2008

By Marc J. Rauch
Exec. Vice President/Co-Publisher

If you’ve been watching television, reading newspapers or
magazines, or are a regular visitor to automotive and political websites,
you’ve heard about T. Boone Picken’s plan to help move America
away from its dependency on foreign oil. The Pickens Plan calls for the
substitution of foreign oil with domestically produced compressed natural
gas and wind power. As much as I admire Boone Pickens and support The
Pickens Plan, compared to the proposition laid out by Edwin Black in THE
PLAN, it’s merely one narrow lane of Black’s all-encompassing
super-highway proposal (to use an apt metaphor).

I don’t know if Boone Pickens and Edwin Black have a personal
relationship, but if their altruistic intentions for advancing their
respective plans-of-salvation can be trusted (and there’s no reason
why they can’t be) then the two should get together; they’d
make a formidable team.

I first met Edwin at the 2006 Alt Car Expo in Santa Monica, California*.
He was scheduled to speak in the middle of two days of noteworthy lecturers
and industry spokespersons, such as former CIA Director James Woolsey,
California Cabinet Secretary Terry Tamminen, Actor/activist Ed Begley, and
incoming California State Senator Fran Pavley. As informative and inspiring
as the other speakers were, Edwin’s presentation “HOW WE BECAME
ADDICTED TO OIL AND HOW TO BREAK THE ADDICTION RIGHT NOW” was all
that, and more: it shocked the audience. It shocked because he talked about
historical episodes that, frankly, I hoped wasn’t true. Information
that sounded on the face of it as anti-American, anti-business rhetoric;
and if I’m anything, it’s pro-American, pro-business.

As the presentation went on, and detailed reference sources were
revealed, it became clear that like-it-or-not, I was hearing the truth.
Later, after I had the chance to do some fact checking on my own, and find
out more about Edwin Black, I realized that he’s neither
anti-American nor anti-business, he’s just a damn good investigative
journalist. Moreover, his revelations are not intended to destroy America
or cherished business folklore but to illuminate the past and warn of a
future that we may face, if we don’t take care now.

Edwin Black’s latest book, THE PLAN, sets up a realistic scenario
in which the west and America must confront a catastrophic crisis (versus
the “mere” escalation of oil prices to oppressive levels) in
which foreign oil is cut off due to “petropolitical” design or
terrorism. According to Edwin, the United States has no comprehensive plan
of dealing with this kind of an emergency, other than buying our way out by
agreeing to whatever economic and political demands are made by the
antagonists.

THE PLAN spells out how and why catastrophe could occur, and it lays out
who the global players are, both past and present. Remarkably, we learn
that many of the most significant players were (until now) unknown, even to
other significant global players.

Edwin and his team has amassed incredible statistics and details that
illustrate the alarming depths to which past and present government and
corporate conspiracies have enslaved us to oil (foreign and domestic)
and outmoded transportation vehicles that won’t allow us to escape
from oil.

Over the past few years, when I have had occasion to write about the
insane rise in oil and gasoline prices, I often received criticism from
someone who thinks that it’s just the laws of supply and demand at
work. I guess they took an economic class in high school. When you read THE
PLAN you realize that it’s not supply and demand to blame for high
prices, it is manipulation and greed.

The historical data contained in the first three chapters alone make the
book invaluable because this one-stop repository of information would be
virtually impossible for anyone with less of a research staff to
compile.

Beginning with Chapter 4, Edwin proposes “the plan” to get
America out of a catastrophic oil crisis. The plan is a multi-stage
deployment of actions, which, as the author readily admits, are not without
severe restrictions and societal limitations. However, he points out that
we’ve had to endure many of these same restrictions, in one way or
another, during other times of emergency and that we’ve always come
out to the better.

The plan recognizes the importance of American natural gas, as an
immediate answer to rising gasoline prices, to staving off a catastrophic
event from ever occurring in the first place, and as the primary bridging
fuel source should a catastrophe occur. And like the comments made by Boone
Pickens during his keynote speech at The Future Is Green Conference last
week (when he stated that he’s for all solutions to the problem, as
long as they’re American solutions), THE PLAN’s plan envisions
using all fuel and mechanical solutions, with consideration given to
regional availability, as long as the solutions free us from foreign oil
dependency.

Other than the incredible intellectual benefit from the content in THE
PLAN, there are three things that I really like about the book. First,
it’s non-partisan: As far as I can tell, the book blames neither the
Republicans nor Democrats more than the other. As an aside, I think
they’re both at fault and should be equally horsewhipped along with their
industrial co-conspirators. THE PLAN offers no prediction as to which party
would do a better job at implementing the suggestions, so regardless of
which candidate is elected in November, either could adopt the plan without
the stigma that he’s using the other guy’s program.

Second, the solutions set forth in THE PLAN are not magical or
unattainable. They’re really just good common sense suggestions (as
the author himself states). Moreover, most of the plan could and should be
put immediately into play by the new President (during the traditional
Congressional “honeymoon” period), regardless of who wins and
regardless of whether we have entered the catastrophic stage of the energy
crisis. It would be far better to do it now before we’re counting the
days until the foreign oil in our storage tanks runs out.

And the third aspect of THE PLAN that I thought was terrific is its
timeliness. Owing to modern publishing methods, books no longer have to be
finished many months in advance, with their information becoming stale. THE
PLAN is not only hot-off-the-press, some of the information is now,
literally written just a few days ago. THE PLAN includes developments in
the auto and energy industries that just occurred.

The Plan Trailer

Click PLAY to watch discuss this issue

Click PLAY to watch Edwin Black's presentation to the Western Automotive Journalists' meeting

SIDE NOTE: The future of the world depends on how we handle
the energy situation. I’m not talking about the environmental
perspective, although that gives us enough reason to address the issue. We
must confront the energy problem because of economic concerns.

The world is in an economic slump as a result of the DotCom bust. The
bust happened because there were just too many idiotic companies sucking up
investor dollars, and then paying out unrealistic salaries to inexperienced
employees (that in turn fueled the housing boom and later the housing crash
when millions were thrown into unemployment or under-paying jobs –
under-paying compared to the previous unrealistic salaries -
and they couldn't afford their mortgage payments).

We need the BOOM of the DotCom era without the BUST. Finding and
actually producing cheaper fuel sources, and the production and distribution of all
the mobile and stationary machines that will utilize the new fuel sources
will create millions of new jobs and business opportunities. Even with the
inevitable idiotic start-up companies that will be in the mix, this boom
won’t bust after four or five short years, it’ll last for two,
three, or four decades.

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